


Winding

by mechafly



Category: Ookiku Furikabutte | Big Windup!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-17
Updated: 2015-05-17
Packaged: 2018-03-31 01:20:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3959062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mechafly/pseuds/mechafly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Moments between Hanai and Tajima, who have a messed-up, hookups, rivalry and baseball-above-everything friendship through high school. </p><p>--</p><p>Tajima's starting to think he has more sex with Hanai in his fantasies than he does in real life. And when they're having fantasy sex it's crazy, it's amazing, it's long and intense and scary but good. In real life it's strange and always short and sort of disappointing after, like a called game.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Winding

Hanai's been carrying this big secret around for so long that he sometimes even forgets about it. He manages to fool himself into thinking he's a normal kid with a normal life. Then it comes back and Hanai wonders what exactly possessed him to do the things he's doing. 

It comes to him when he's doing the most ordinary, boring tasks, like dropping Haruka off at dance rehearsals or moaning at his mother for her weirdness. He realises he's also this person who does things that are perhaps antithetical to eveyerhting about himself and his way of life. It's like he's two different people at any moment, quietly denying the other. He doesn't think about it for long each time.

Tajima seems to have none of these complications of identity, when Hanai remembers to check. He seems as happy in bed with Hanai doing greasy, nasty, sometimes amazing things as he is out on the field, being brilliant, being lesser, still being more. The guy's always been more than human and Hanai's always hated him a little for that.

 

 

***

 

 

\--We're sharing a room again? Tajima screws up his face as only he can: a pug's mass of wrinkles around his snub nose. 

Hanai shrugs, hefting his weekend bag--gym clothes, training uniform, soft old clothes for sleeping in, various random things--over one shoulder.

Tajima spreads his stuff all over the bed, determined to move in even though they're only at spring camp for a week. 

Hanai sits down and gets out his notebook about the schedule for the week. He's making notes about where all the parts of the team need to be. First years out in the fields all day, weeding; third-years doing all the household tasks and cleaning out the old furniture. 

 

 

***

 

 

Tajima's freckled skin has a burn above the waistband of his boxers.

\--Does that hurt?

\--It doesn't.

Hanai's still staring at it when Tajima's crouched on his own bed, a couple of feet away, intently typing something with pecking fingers into his busted old laptop which his brother has passed down to him to help him finish schoolwork. The sound of heavy breathing erupts from tinny speakers. Tajima's eyes get marginally brighter.

\--Put some earphones in.

Tajima doesn't even glance at him. --Come and have a look.

Hanai does with a roll of the eyes and groan. --Make space, he complains and Tajima distractedly scoots over. Hanai notices that same shiny creased burnmark low on Tajima's brown stomach before glancing back at the screen. A skinny big-boned man and a soft-looking woman who looks like she's made of flour, cavorting on all fours. --You have bad taste in porn.

Tajima spares him an amused glance. --I get bored with all that elaborate stuff.

They watch the girl moan theatrically in a higher and higher pitch. Hanai winces. The shot switches to a close-up of penis entering orifice.

\--I wish someone would blow me like that, Tajima sighs wistfully, as if he's composing a poem to the moon rather than watching internet porn. They both watch intently, the girl's round lips gripping the guy's red-tinged cock like some kind of greedy sea monster. Hanai jerks away as if burned when he catches Tajima staring at him. --You like that, huh?

\--It's normal to like something like that, he protests weakly. His face feels hot and suddenly Tajima, naked apart from a pair of thin boxers which don't quite cover that raw burn scar on his hip, amber eyes not leaving Hanai's face, seems way too close.

\--True enough, Tajima says.

 

 

***

 

 

"I don't think you quite understand what it's like to be in someone else's shadow all the time."

\- Me not understand? You're the one who's…. All of this. Everything. You get everything! 

\- You know that's just for show. Everyone believes in you. Everyone relies on you! 

Tajima breaks eye contact. - I guess we've been misunderstanding each other all this time.

Hanai blinks because he's not quite sure what that means. What's there to misunderstand? 

Tajima looks resigned. - I don't always… think rationally about you. Because everything you do reflects on me. On who I am.

"I see," Hanai says but he doesn'treally understand, not at all. 

 

 

***

 

 

Tajima's starting to think he has more sex with Hanai in his fantasies than he does in real life. And when they're having fantasy sex it's crazy, it's amazing, it's long and intense and scary but good. In real life it's strange and always short and sort of disappointing after, like a called game.

One time Tajima suffers to the embarassment of coming just from a couple of kisses and Hanai pressing against him like a solid slab of concrete, all muscles. He grunts as all the energy leaves him and Hanai is too busy to notice.

 

 

***

 

 

The worst part was the way Tajima looked at him after he'd come, brain scraped raw of thought of anything except a hoarse primal pleasure. Tajima's look was a satisfied look, and he'd even swiped a hand across his mouth, his eyes gleaming with proprietaries, as Hanai caught his breath.

"That was weird," is what comes out of Hanai's mouth, a lacklustre attempt to break the weird tension of Tajima staring at him like that. 

"I could tell you liked it," Tajima says simply. Still staring. Hanai shudders.

 

 

***

 

 

After college.

\--Did you ever…?  
\--No. No, never. You?  
\--Once or twice. I have a girlfriend now, though. Her name's Naoko.  
\--That's a nice name.  
\--It's good to see you.  
\--Yeah, you too.  
\--Do you want to see the rest of my place?   
\--Sure.

They walk around.

\--This is the bedroom. It's pretty small but it's nice to have my own place so I'm not fussy.  
\--Do you still keep in touch with the guys?  
\--Nah. And you know, I sometimes feel like it's better that way. Things change. People change. In my memory it's like this long, beautiful thing that's perfect as it is. I see Coach sometimes when I go home to visit since it's so close. But the guys? No.  
\--I'm in touch with a few of them. Abe. Nishihiro, too.  
\--You're the Captain.   
\--Not any more.   
\--Feel the springs, it's super springy.  
\--What's your girlfriend like?  
\--Pretty. She's pretty.

Tajima puts a hand on his arm. 

\--It's funny bumping into you again after all this time.  
\--Yeah. 

They kiss. 

\--This… Can't…  
\--Just once.  
\--Okay.

 

***

 

\--You're worried.

Hanai grimaces. Tajima looks up at Hanai's face with inquisitive amber eyes, like a large cat's.

\--I don't want to talk about it.

\--We don't have to talk about it. But I don't--

\--I don't want to talk about it--

\--I don't want you to feel taken advantage of.

\--Why would I feel like that?

\--Because I like you.

Tajima says this so simply and honestly that Hanai can't even be embarassed.

\--Fine.

\--Don't be angry, okay?

Tajima's grinning, the cat-like grin with the small, sharp canines. His freckled skin bunches into hundreds of tiny wrinkles. Hanai scoffs a laugh.

Quietly,

\--Okay.

It feels like he's accepted something, perhaps against his own will. Tajima looks at him as if he owns a piece of him and Hanai grits his teeth but the feeling doesn't go away.

 

 

***

 

 

Tajima's on a late-night errand, bottle of oil, tea, sunflower seeds, the local convenience store right opposite school. Same place he gets post-lunch snacks with Izumi and Oki. The clerk is a fat old guy, playing games on an iPad when there's nobody in the store.

And the lights are humming the way they only do very late at night, when everything else is still but you can hear them. But there is somebody in the store. Somebody strangely out of place with his tallness and his distracted way of looking at the world. The back of Hanai's shaved head as he roots through the refridgerator holding the canned, iced drinks. Tajima could pay and leave without Hanai even noticing he was there.

He surprises Hanai instead with a loud yell. They converse. Hanai is invitingly unfamiliar in his adult's jogging bottoms and threadbare shirt, the kind of thing Tajima imagines he goes to sleep in. Hanai's run the whole length of town on his evening run. Hanai rubs sweat off the back of his strong neck with a large-knuckled hand as he hands over yen notes to the sleepy clerk.

"You'll be up all night if you drink that," Tajima chides when Hanai takes a swig of iced coffee. Hanai's all muscle but he has a sweet tooth, and the moment summer baseball is over he'll be packing on the pounds. 

"Doesn't keep me up," Hanai said, voice neutral. Their conversation is bits of nothingness but it's strangely intimate in that unfamiliar location at an unfamiliar time. Hanai has beads of sweat trailing their way down his face, like something out of an ad for a beer on television. You were supposed to want to drink the beer because the girl in the ad was pretty. Tajima thought he didn't want to drink beer but he was pretty thirsty all of a sudden.

"See you." Hanai waves goodbye with a quizzical look, as if this simplest of encounters with Tajima has confused him. Tajima enjoys those looks, normally. It amuses him to see Hanai flustered.

Cute, Tajima's thinking, all the way back home.

 

 

***

 

 

"Why did you just kiss me?" Izumi asks, obviously panicking. He looks halfway between punching Tajima and bursting into tears. A pasty red flush blooms across his pimpled face.

"It was the dare," Tajima says slowly. "We were supposed to kiss--"

"You kissed me on the mouth!" Izumi whispers furiously. 

Tajima frowns. "Why are you freaking out?" Izumi clamps shut at this accusation and refuses to explain further. Tajima huffs a loud breath. 

 

 

***

 

 

"Batting in the rain again?"

He is. 

Hanai's a tall but blurry figure in all this falling water as he loiters near the batting cage. Not even wearing his baseball uniform, because practise was cancelled because of the oncoming typhoon. Despite the always-annoying tallness of his body and the bulk of his muscles under his clothes, he looks… ordinary.

When Tajima doesn't reply, Hanai calls his name. Tajima watches him lift a hand to shield his eyes from the rain, but it seems too little, too late. He must be absolutely soaked to the bone. Tajima is. 

They watch the machine spit out another ball. That THWACK is familiar as a heartbeat. They watch the ball fly, uncertainly, weighed and muddled in its path by water.

"Crazy," Hanai's saying later, when they're drying off in the empty dugout. The rain's still beating a thunderous applause on the roof. "And midterms start tomorrow."

"Were you going to help me study?" Tajima pulls of his dripping undershirt and dries his face with the pants he wore to school that morning. It doesn't help much. Hanai nods and shakes his head, dislodging drops of rain.

"Then, we could…" Tajima trails off. He's found, after a lot of trial and error (a lot of error), it's better to leave the hint of a suggestion in these cases rather than state his point outright. With Hanai, at least, that's what seems to work best.

Hanai fidgets, nods, sighs, doesn't look at him. When Tajima approaches, he gets shoved away. "Not here," Hanai says finally.

"Why? We did before." 

"That's…" Hanai bites off. Stands up, towering over Tajima. "Let's go."

 

 

***

 

 

"We should call the whole thing off." Hanai's talking to himself in the mirror. Why is it that he's better at talking to himself in the mirror than he is at looking Tajima in the eye and saying what it is he wants to say?

It's not the first time he's done this.

He's in his own bathroom at home, but everything feels unfamiliar when Tajima's around, like he's looking at it with Tajima's eyes. The bathroom with all its grey tiles and big steaming bath seems as foreign as a stranger's house and twice as large. It's disorientating. He looks at himself in the mirror. A frowning young man with a closely shaven head frowns back, looking a little desperate. "Let's end this. Now. It's been going on for too long."

He washes himself off with a towel and heads back to his own room.

Tajima's still asleep and naked in his bed. He always seems cheerfully undisturbed by Hanai moving about or leaving. It might be because of his large family: all that noise, all that endless disturbance, he'd have to have learned to sleep anywhere, in any conditions. Tajima arches and turns over in his sleep as Hanai watches, still towelling the back of his neck.

Now that he's actually looking at Tajima, all the bravado from the boy in the mirror seems to have vanished. 

Tajima's body is such a strange shade of reddish brown. Up close, you can see constellations of freckles delicately fanning across his skin, but from far away he looks tanned and sunburnt. 

Tajima's skin gives way under his teeth. It's salty.

Tajima grunts underneath his hands. Hanai pulls away. A long silence.

Tajima blinks up at him. He looks so young and so male that it's painful, out-stretched on the bed with his muscles stretching out, face frowwning, hair sticking straight up. He blinks his big amber coloured eyes at Hanai as if not really seeing him.

They kiss. After all this time Hanai isn't really comfortable with kissing. It's too intimate somehow. Tajima always slides his hands up Hanai's face and down the back of his neck, that same exact motion, every time, like he's savouring it. Tajima has a mouth like velvet. Hanai finds he can't quite believe it feels like that and has to keep bending to check again.

He has Tajima pressed into the bed, taking the advantage while Tajima's sleep fuzzy from sleep to negotiate his limbs into a comfortable position. Tajima slides his hands down Hanai's naked back. Arches into Hanai's mouth when Hanai kisses down the muscles of his chest.

The rest just follows on, without him quite meaning for it to happen, as it always does.

Hanai thinks, afterwards, racked with guilt, and also with frustration because he still wants to call the whole thing off; and also because they're late for practise and Tajima insists on cycling dangerously fast, without a care for safety; because Tajima makes the whole family laugh at breakfast over a funny story; because Tajima kisses him again before jumping in the shower; he thinks maybe he can never look Tajima in the eye and say, let's call the whole thing off, because Tajima's too honest. Tajima looks at him with that weighing expression and Hanai feels all his lies falling apart leaving him naked with the truth. Tajima does that to him every day.

He doesn't like it much.

 

 

***

 

 

Tajima press him up against the wall and undoes his belt. Hanai thinks, he shouldn't be so fast at undoing someone else's belt, not so easy and practised like he's been doing it all his life, one-handed and completely easy, but Tajima's always been a fast, super-skilled, too fast, supernaturally good. At everything. 

Thoughts come to a standstill with the sound of Tajima coughing and his forehand against Hanai's bare hip.

As thought returns to him Hanai starts to feel guilty about various things--being too rough with Tajima once again, making a half-hearted vow to try and be a bit gentler next time even as he knows it won't work because he always gives in to the urge to be rough. 

He feels guilty about the fact that he's had sex with a team-mate, again; he feels like he's violating some kind of special code of male friendship but neither of them have ever talked about it. 

On top of all of that is the fact that it's Tajima. Why did it have to be Tajima? And that's on principle.

And, then, Tajima's a guy, which is a whole set of worries all on its own. He's not gay, is he? What if he's ruined himself for girls? Fuck, they should stop. But what if he is gay, what will his mother say? 

He probably shouldn't be having sex in the bathroom at Mizutani's birthday party either.

Tajima spits semen onto the floor.

Hanai looks at the small, slimy pile of white stuff sliding along the black bathroom tile with mounting uneasiness. "Clean that up…" His voice is completely hoarse, as if he's the one who's been doing filthy things with his throat. He's shaking.

Tajima's looking up at him with heavy-lidded amber eyes. His mouth is all pink and slick (Hanai shudders even though he's just orgasmed). Tajima rocks back against his heels. Hanai does up his belt with hands that fumble tiredly, feeling kind of sticky and gross. And guilty.

Yeah, they really should stop doing this.

\--C'mere, Tajima commands. 

They really should stop doing this.

Soon. 

Definitely.

 

 

***

 

 

"Like…" Tajima looks around the room, the bare wooden table with years of pens digging strange graffiti into it, the faded chalkboard, the always-dying overheard projector, the stack of papers and folders piled up on the desk, the harried teacher standing in the dark light of a January morning. "How do you tell your parents? What did they say? And is it normal to switch positions? 'Cause Hanai says the same guy should be the girl each time but I think it's just because he doesn't want to be on the bottom… I have loads of questions about sex. And porn isn't really helping--"

"This is completely inappropriate." Kurosawa's mouth slims to a tiny line. "How old even are you?"

"Fifteen."

"How old's your, er, partner?" he demands.

"Ah, Hanai his birthday in August, he's sixteen."

Kurosawa mutters to himself in acceptance. "Fuck. Kids like you should be out playing baseball and doing your homework, not getting up to stuff like this."

Tajima grins cutely.

 

 

***

 

 

"Oh my god I love you."

Tajima stares at him, round-mouthed, as Hanai comes all over his hands. Hanai spends a good few seconds staring at Tajima's mouth, all red and open, before his brain catches up with his (recently satisfied) dick.

"Fuck. I mean."

Tajima's flushed face (darkening under all the freckles from a summer of playing under the sun) crinkles up into laughter, mischeivous as an imp, and he snuggles in close. "You’re in love with me now?"

Hanai prods him reprovingly. They've both just orgasmed. Nothing can bother him seriously right now, but he might just be deeply embarassed in a few minutes. "You know what I meant."

Tajima fixes him with a thoughtful stare and rests his head on Hanai's shoulder. "Do I?" Hanai rubs the back of Tajima's neck, right where his spine protrudes in two bumps and the skin stretched over them feels thin and delicate. Tajima wrinkles his nose. "That was good," he sighs, eyes falling shut.

"Yeah." 

"I actually like you a lot, you know," Tajima says slowly, looking up at him.

Hanai winces, then winces mentally at the obviousness of the first wince. He's enjoying the post-orgasm sleepiness. He so doesn't want to talk about his feelings right now. "I like you too," he sighs. "Apparently I'm in love with you."

For some reason, Tajima laughs against his shoulder, a raw sound. And between one moment and the next, Hanai nods off against the rough tickle of Tajima's hair.

 

 

***

 

 

Haruka's mother whines at her until she drags herself up the stairs and bangs on Azusa's door to wake him and Tajima up. They're not usually up late, seeing as how they need to go to school early for practise; but it's already 7AM and there's not even a sound. 

"GET OUTTA BED," she yells, banging on the door harder. No response, so in annoyance she pulls down the door handle and pushes the door open.

Silence. 

The curtains are open, which means someone woke up and opened them. Her brother's room stinks of gross teenage boy. Haruka grimaces. She realises her brother's not actually around which means he must be showering in the bathroom or something. The futon on the floor is totally unmade, in stark contrast to the military orderliness of everything else. Except the bed. Where Tajima's snoozing away in tangled bedsheets.

Haruka realises in an agonised moment that Tajima sleeps without his shirt on. Well, presumably her brother does too; but that's different. Tajima is… shirtless. And lying stretching out all over the bed. He's… freckled all over. All of his skin is freckled in waves of colour under his tanned skin. He's muscular. Really muscular. He has thick strong shoulders and wiry biceps and… and… abs. Thick abs portuding out of his muscled stomach. And coarse black hair trailing downwards…. And he's just lying there in that bed, all stretched out… Glistening with a thin layer of sweat all over his brown freckles..

Holy fuck, she realises. Tajima's… really… really hot. Haruka stands in the doorway and gapes. He wasn't hot before, was he? Boys her age are never hot, they're always weedy and annoying. But Tajima was always just this guy from the baseball team who hung around. He's comically short next to Azusa and he tells funny stories that mainly embarrass her brother and make her mother laugh like a witch.

But this…

She's so distracted she doesn't even question why on earth Tajima's even sleeping in the bed at all, and why her brother's been apparently sleeping on the futon. That's not even in the top ten of things she's thinking about.

Before her brother can come out of the bathroom or worse, Tajima wakes up and catches her staring at him, Haruka slinks back down to the kitchen table and quietly mumbles that they're on their way down.

"Those boys," her mother sighs. "They've probably been staying up all night again!"

 

 

***

 

 

"Well, nobody knows."

"Oh no, Ren knows we're fucking." 

"Why, for God's sake?"

"I tell him everything." Tajima's head swivels and he fixes Hanai with a eagle-eyed look. "Also my big brother knows. You are terrified of being found out, aren't you?"

Hanai imagines a process. His parents opening their mouths with knowledge in them. He can see is head smashing on the pavement, bullets in his eyes, his teeth falling out of his head. He sits down and Tajima puts a hand on his shoulder. "Everything will be okay."

"You don't know that." He shrugs off the hand.

"I do. It's a fact. It's a law of the universe. Everything will be okay. It's, like, karma or something."

"That's not what karma is, idiot." Hanai's brain hurts from worrying so hard, but he can't help but nag Tajima anyway. 

 

 

***

 

 

Tajima's shaking him awake. Everything's pitch blank but he can recognise Tajima's bony strong grip and guess who might be inconsiderate enough to wake him in the middle of the night, halfway through summer camp, when he definitely needs his sleep. 

Hanai follows Tajima's silent footsteps outside, stepping carefully over the strewn and snoring limbs of the rest of the third-years. Mizutani with his face in Suyama's stomach. Mihashi's long skinny limbs sprawled in a huge star by the doorway. The general sound of breathing and snoring is delicate as a thread of silk. 

The wooden floorboards are dry and rough and ominously creaky under his feet. Tajima's quiet as a cat, leading him with one cold hand clamped around Hanai's wrist. He watches Tajima's messed and fanned-out black mop of hair, spiking around his delicate skull as fine as a hedgehogs. Tajima silently pauses and appears to make a decision. They stop in the kitchen. Tajima snaps on the light, blinding for a moment in its intensity. His face is all shadows and stark lights. The light strip on the ceiling jerks and buzzes. 

Tajima fetches himself up and perches on the edge of the kitchen counter, eyes bright in the strange electric light. 

"C'mere." Barely more than a whisper, but Hanai crosses the room and leans against the counter, against Tajima's knees. 

Tajima puts his arms around Hanai's shoulders and rubs a thumb down the back of Hanai's neck. Hanai has a moment as Tajima os tugging him forward, their faces still not level despite Tajima sitting on a high surface, to think, oh, this. He's been preoccupied with everything this camp. There's been the masses of underclassmen to herd in every direction, huge meals to make, endless strategy meetings with Coach and Shino'oka and Sakaeguchi and Abe and Mr Shiga, training schedules to work out, training to do, to the point of exhaustion and beyond it. He hasn't had a moment to spare to think of much else. 

Hanai fondles Tajima's hair, so childishly mussed already that Hanai can't even mess it up further. Runs a thumb down the side of Tajima's tanned forehead. His face hasn't changed much since first year, Hanai thinks. A little less soft, a man's face instead of a child's. But Tajima will always have that look of mischief. Hanai's falling asleep from exhaustion, falling forward into Tajima's body. He can hear lone cicadas croaking in the forest outside. It's the absolute dead of night. Tajima's mouth tastes heavy and acrid, like he's been snacking on something before bed. 

It only occurs to him after they've separated mouths that this might be a bad idea. Anyone could wake up and find them here like this. Why would that be bad? He's too exhausted to remember. Tajima's gnarled insistent hand drags him back down again. Hanai likes running his hands down Tajima's throat to feel his Adam's apple bobbing, to slide a thumb across his pointy collarbones and to rest his palm on his bony shoulders. Tajima's got a strong body, a body Hanai enjoys touching, wiry and thin and muscled every inch of him. Tajima pulls back and stares at him, mouth open and slick and red. Parts his knees to drag Hanai in closer, until Hanai's leaning over the kitchen counter. Their bodies flush together. Tajima's lips are slick and shiny. He tastes slick and strong, his hands on Hanai's body firm and insistent and touching and pressing everywhere. Hanai presses a hand around Tajima's thigh, squeezing a warning. They really can't have sex against the kitchen counter in the middle of summer camp. But. Tajima's thigh muscle jumps in his hand, a hot thick handful, so Hanai squeezes again. Tajima writhes against him like a snake. 

"Need to sleep," he murmurs against Tajima's mouth in lieu of kissing him again.

"Can't sleep if my dick's hard," Tajima mumbles. He tilts his head up and licks Hanai's mouth for a fraction of a second. A hot wet slick of tongue, there and gone again. Then Tajima shudders, a full body shudder Hanai feels everywhere they're touching. His eyes are cast down, just a glimmer of iris catching beneath the eyelid.

"Too bad." Hanai could, he thinks, just lean down a touch more and capture Tajima's sly tongue back with his mouth. He could lift Tajima bodily from this counter, all one heavy hot weight, and fuck him against the wall. On the floor. On the table. Anywhere. If they had the right stuff, which they don't. If they were alone, which they're not. If they weren't completely exhausted from practise, which they are. Only Tajima has the kind of extreme endurance necessary to feel any kind of arousal after this kind of intensely exhausting training. Tajima strokes his face restlessly with one callused and sun-wrinkled hand, bites his own lip. Hanai looks away.

He's still lying awake on his futon when Tajima pads in and flops down next to him. He can never sleep on his back on a futon. Tajima touches his shoulder, in apology or just greeting. Tajima's inviting, all warm and familiar boy smells and familiar dips and bones and hard muscle, familiar shapes. He presses his face into Tajima's hair and Tajima sighs, deep, comfortable. Satisfied. 

Tajima's small hand slipps under his waistband to stroke his hip, a distant scratch of skin on skin. 

 

 

***

 

 

The sound of some middle-aged person wailing a song at full volume echoes down the corridor as Hanai follows Tajima to the bathrooms. Everything's gold-plated and sparkly, weirdly tacky but also familiar. It's kind of sadly appropriate that they chose such a place for Mizutani's birthday celebrations. 

Tajima's been acting crazy all evening, singing stupid songs and generally making everyone laugh. Hanai's not much of a singer, so he just hangs in the back and talks to the second-years until Tajima distracts them away and gets it into his head to sit in Hanai's lap. His hands wander, too. 

Next thing he knows, he's following Tajima into a sparkly purple bathroom stall with strange neon glowing lights and hoisting him up against the wall. Tajima makes this aggressive little noise and drags him close. They're kissing. Hanai likes kissing Tajima (which isn't something he'd thought he could ever admit even to himself). He likes the way Tajima's nose kind of bumps his cheek. Tajima's thin lips nibbling at him. The slick depthsof Tajima's mouth when Hanai presses in closer. Tajima's tongue going this way and that. Tajima's strong hands on his shoulders and neck, pulling him down, pulling him closer. Pressing Tajima's strong body into a firm surface. Taking breaths, mumbling incoherently to each other. There's something satisfying about it all, like eating a filling meal. He's got a hand on Tajima's ass trying to lift him closer and he's squeezing and Tajima's making this hot little breathy noises right into his mouth, and damn. Tajima's ass feels like solid straining muscle in his palm. He's not sure he's ever going to want to let go.

Tajima puts his hands either side of Hanai's face and pulls away, just a fraction. Gives him this serious stare. "I want to touch you." All hoarse because Hanai's had his tongue down his throat for the last ten minutes. Doesn't stop Hanai shivering when Tajima pulls away and backs him up against the wall. Does stop him from questioning what exactly Tajima's thinking of doing, when he undoes Hanai's belt buckle. Tajima's hands are as sure and deft as ever. It still hasn't quite clicked, when Tajima puts a burning hand on his dick, and then gets on his knees.

The worst part is the look Tajima gives him, right before. That same intense look of focus, every game, every at-bat. The very same.

He's not going to forget, either, not for a long time, the sight of Tajima with his hands clinging to Hanai's bare thighs. The sight of his own hand in Tajima's hair, grasping hard enough to hurt, forcing Tajima to be still. The sight of his dick sliding in and out of Tajima's round, petulant, dirty, disobedient mouth. Fucking Tajima's mouth. The slick hot brain-melting sensation of it. The breathless groan that escapes Tajima's mouth when Hanai's done coming. The sounds and occasional glimpses of Tajima jerking himself off, furiously, hips snapping wildly into his hand. Hanai's brain seems to fuzz and melt as he slides down the cubicle wall and lands on his ass, pants still undone. He can't think. 

Tajima spits into the bathroom sink and washes his hands. Hanai washes his hands too even though there isn't much need. In the mirror, they both look like… different people. Flushed and tired and kind of guilty. Has Tajima always looked that small beside him? 

Tajima is running a wet hand through his own completely messed-up hair. 

That was me, Hanai thinks with mixed feelings, feeling the ache in his fingers.

 

 

***

 

 

"Ren's straight. Straight as an arrow. Totally, totally straight." 

"I didn't say anything!" Hanai tears his eyes guiltily away from Mihashi's back stumbling his way away from Tajima (they'd been having a long in-depth conversation, Tajima's arm slung around Mihashi's waist, intimate and warm). Tajima simply shrugs as if to say, 'I saw you looking.' And it's true that Tajima has always been able to read him, every since the beginning, easy as an opposing team on the diamond.

"Can I come over tonight?" 

Tajima always asks. Very formal and polite, completely different from the way he acts when he's actually got himself into Hanai's house, refusing to study and scampering about and teasing Hanai about everything in sight.

"What's your excuse?" In the early days of experimenting and circling their way around each other, Tajima would make up the most outrageous reasons: a huge test the next morning he hadn't even touched the notes for , his dog eating his homework that he swore he'd done, any number of things.

"Well, I'm failing everything and I could certainly use the help, but mostly I was hoping to see you and your family." Tajima takes off his cap and smiles up at him, but it's small and sweet, a far cry from that monkeyish grin of mischief he gets before he does something he knows will piss Hanai off. Together with the constellations of freckles splattered handsomely across his face and the childish snub nose, the effect is curiously sweet.

Hanai fails to think of any kind of comeback, in case this is a tease after all. He just tells Tajima yes. In the end, he always tells Tajima yes, doesn't he?

"Well, that, and get laid." And Tajima actually has the temerity to wink impishly at him.

"TAJIMA." He must have berated Tajima a thousand times not to let something like that slip when they're in the practise field, where any stray schoolmate might hear them, or worse, an adult. He's told Tajima a thousand times how bad it would be to be caught fucking a schoolmate, a male schoolmate, a team-mate, just how bad the consequences might be if it became public, not just for their personal lives but for their professional lives too. One stupid step and they'd be regretting it forever. Not that Tajima seems to care.

Sometimes Tajima completely infuriates him.

But he's never said no. Not yet, anyway. 

One of these days, perhaps.

If Tajima pushes him too far.

 

 

 

Tajima can't sleep. It's late, far too late to be awake on a school night. He'll be tired for practise tomorrow and Momoe will probably have his balls for breakfast. Well, she's already given his cleanup position to Hanai.

He's surprised at himself for that innocuous little thought. Is he still bitter? It's been months. Almost a year, now.

He reaches under the band of his boxers, the tried and trusted way to get himself to sleep if he's tossing and turning with hopeless energy. The previous thought prompts an image of Hanai, all naked and muscled and gleaming. He wants to fight to keep Hanai pinned. He wants to keep Hanai down. He wants Hanai to fight back he wants something violent and messy, he wants to leave bite marks all over hanai's abs and arms and crazy pecs and tight little nipples and huge trucklike thighs; he wants something urgent and intense because that’s all the potential he sees in Hanai's huge muscular body. He wants all of Hanai's strength and power, he want to own it, he wants to take it from Hanai, he wants it to crush him, to choke him. He wants to lick the sweat off Hanai's neck. He wants Hanai's tongue around his dick. Tajima's so fucking close to coming already, when he's barely even begun, jams his fingers up his ass because it makes it last, makes everything rougher, helps him cool down for a second, adjusting to the abrupt sensation. 

But now he's imagining Hanai doing it with those big rough hands of his or even that big rough dick of his, all that strength of his. Tajima's got three fingers shoved up there now and is on the insane balance between deep pain and orgasm. Climaxes, when he can't hold off pumping his dick, so close to the edge. He just lies there with his brain quiet. 

Tajima often thinks of old baseball games during these times. The old, legendary games he'd seen on the television as a tiny kid, sitting in his grandmother's lap, the whole family drinking and laughing through the whole game. He liked the way the batter would hit the ball so far out of the park that the game would stop and everyone, pitcher, catcher, batter, everyone stood watching and watching. It seemed like the ball would never drop back down to the earth, like it had flown amongst the stars. Tajima always wanted to be Hideki Matsui, the homerun hitter with all the glory and the power; but despite all his efforts, he's always been more suited to making clever quick little plays than changing the tide of an entire game with a single hit.

No, it was Hanai who'd done that, multiple times now, enough to prove his worth as a cleanup, enough to win their games. Tajima loves to win, he loves to play in a team, and he loves to see Hanai working so hard, insanely hard, not taking a thing for granted. It makes him happy.

And still. There it is. That niggling piece of doubt. 

He falls asleep, exhausted, without any answers.


End file.
